Foster care and adoption; toddlers to young adults; it's all here-- faith and humor meet as this mom of four chronicles the joy and heartbreak of motherhood.

Sunday, July 11, 2010

July, 2010-- My father-in-law: Living the vows

It’s probably good that the wedding
vows are very general. Catholic wedding vows are just two sentences long:“I promise to be true to you in good times
and in bad, in sickness and in health. I will love you and honor you all the
days of my life.”

Perhaps
there are a few young couples who grasp exactly what they’re promising with
those sentences, but most—myself included—stand on that altar and think the
words about bad times and sickness are more of a formality.

As
a twenty-five-year-old bride, sickness to me still meant a case of strep
throat, and a bad time was rain at Summerfest.The naiveté of youth blended with the fairytale tulle of the wedding
dress and the two-foot tall cake for dessert seemed to whisper “liar” to the
hints of trouble in the vows.

Now,
sixteen years into marriage, I would stand on that altar with Bill again and
promise my life to him, once again, but I would also understand that just as
the word “good” cannot do justice to the exquisite joy of the moment of a
baby’s birth or child’s adoption, so the word “bad” cannot contain the profound
sorrow of loss and pain.

Bill’s
mom died of Alzheimer’s disease three weeks ago. It was by no means the first
death we have experienced as a couple, but it was the closest. Watching my
father-in-law care for his wife during the eight-year progression of her
illness taught me the depth of the sanctity of marriage. Alzheimer’s is a cruel
and sneaky disease. It started off looking like normal forgetfulness— Nancy
misplacing her keys or reaching for the wrong word in a sentence.It progressed to the somewhat worrisome—Nancy
adding flour rather than powdered sugar to the cake frosting. At each stage, we
lost her a little more. A usually bright and engaged conversationalist, she
became increasingly unable to keep up with chatter at the dinner table. As the
disease progressed, she lost her ability to cook, to keep the calendar and
checkbook, to drive, and in the final year, even to dress and care for herself.

My
father-in-law, Harry, responded to his wife’s illness by living his marriage
vows so completely and so beautifully, it took my breath away. Harry would
never say he was living the vows. Harry was a computer analyst and programmer
before he retired; a straightforward and practical man, not given to poetic
expressions or liturgical language, so he would just say, “I made chicken and
potatoes for dinner,” if he said anything at all. But for a groom of the 1960s
whose responsibilities as a husband had not included making meals, keeping the
house or calendar, or doing much of what would be considered “women’s work,”
Harry’s decision to take on the full care of his wife, along with doing all the
things she used to do, was to me, exactly what is meant by honoring your spouse
all the days of your life.

A
few years into Nancy’s illness, I suggested to Harry that he didn’t need to
worry about gifts for myself and the kids for birthdays and holidays.
Gift-buying had been Nancy’s department and I didn’t want to burden him with
one more responsibility. I think I may have offended him, because he sputtered
something about how it was not going to be a problem. And it wasn’t.
Apparently, he had been absorbing Nancy’s sense of style through the years; while
I wasn’t too surprised with the remote control vehicles he gave to the boys, I
was amazed by the fabulous clothes he managed to pick out for both the girls
and myself.

“Great
sweater,” a co-worker said to me at work one day shortly after Christmas. “Thanks. My father-in-law gave it to
me,” I said.

“Who
has a father-in-law who can buy them clothes?” she said incredulously.

A
father-in-law who is living the vows, I thought.

As
Nancy’s condition worsened, Harry—in Bill’s words at the eulogy—became a
Superhero. He took on more and more of Nancy’s care; managing her medicine;
feeding her; dressing her. Sometimes he was hard on himself, saying he wasn’t
patient enough. In her final year, he was smart enough to know what was best
for her; sending her to adult day care a few days a week so she would be in a
safe setting while he got things done in the house. Two months before her
death, he found a nursing home a mile from their home. She moved there, and
Harry visited every day to feed her lunch.

On
the day of Nancy’s death, Bill, Harry and I were together in her nursing home
room, along with the hospice nurse. Nancy was struggling to breathe. Harry knew
it was time. I said goodbye to Nancy. Harry left the room and I thanked her for
being such a good mother-in-law, for welcoming me into the family and sharing
her son with me; for being a wonderful grandmother to our children.

And
now, a few weeks later, I have someone else to thank, and that’s Harry. For
giving me a model of what it means to live those marriage vows.

About Me

Annemarie writes locally and nationally on foster care, adoption, parenting and spirituality. She is responsible for the content in At Home with Our Faith (circulation 80,000), which has won the First Place award in its category from the Associated Church Press for three consecutive years. Her Training Wheels column has appeared in the Milwaukee Catholic Herald since 2002 and most of these blogs appeared first in her Training Wheels column or as a chapter of her book, Discovering Motherhood (Ambassador Press, 2006). She is married to Bill, with four children (two biological, two adopted), and works in a job-share position at Johnson Controls as director of Corporate Programs in Diversity and Public Affairs.